I will bet there are many people out there that think LXDE is just something to use here and there. Personally, for a few years I thought the same way. It took me time to understand the amount of work that was done for this desktop that makes it quite durable and great to use. Now for all those wishing to use this awesome desktop as a standalone, I also want to suggest you use ppa:lubuntu-desktop/ppa. As you can see in the picture I have taken of my current OS which runs only LXDE, the weather applet works 100% correct. Also zero errors on transparency for taskbar which I have placed on top of the screen. The repository I have listed contains some very intense and serious developers that refuse to let anyone consider LXDE as nothing less than a standalone desktop.

Now most people would also think LXDM is a sad/lame window manager. Why? Well, yes login is not real pretty to be honest. Still, LXDM can be configured to handle all the necessary permissions other window managers do automatically. The main reason I constructed the current OS I am using is to show how proud I am of all the hard work these great developers have done. Also the major benefit is one solid brick wall system that just does exactly what I want it to do. Could I ask for more? No, because this is what I have been looking for, so I feel I have arrived at my destination.

What really makes LXDE special is its ability to use Gnome and KDE components so gracefully and easily. If I said any other desktop handled the variety very easily, boy was I wrong. Then we have the ease of assembly when constructing a system like mine. Hardly any apt-get -f installs to talk about, nowhere near what I have done in the past. Another aspect that is truly awesome and quite hilarious, I built this system close to 2 years ago, the first time. I built it for my laptop to be a simplistic system that could take a beating and still keep going. Was I right about that? You bet. Of course I was still foolish and ran that other multiple desktop folly of mine for close to 2 years on the PC. Now whenever the desktop gave me a hassle, I jumped right to that laptop and presto no hassle whatsoever. So, the system was on 14.10 originally.

I considered it my best work yet, kept the image and then just updated that image one week ago. Most would think, forget it build it over again make a fresh one, right? Thought about it, but then figured Ubuntu and LXDE have just been humpin away working their fingers to oblivion to get things top notch. Let's see what will happen. Well, this is amazing as programs just fire away with zero hassle. Boots quick, shuts down fast. I honestly love it. Will I built a fresh one? Yes, since I love doing it. I also want to explore a few other ideas I have. Is only natural for those of us that enjoy building our own OS's. Least, I have one fine system to work with to do that, so should be zero hassles. A big smile is on my face now and LXDE developers are responsible for that fact. This is the reason I call LXDE the little big guy. Looks like something small, but set it to a big task and handles just as easily as those other larger desktops. Hats off to all those developers that have had many sleepless nights and days of intense work to make this one of the greatest desktops in Linux. P.S Yes is still my old Cyana-3D theme displayed. Has stood the test of time and can still be downloaded. Eventually, will do some theming again when time permits.

The deal breaker with LXDE has usually been compositing, although there are some lesser alternatives. That being the reason I believe that XFCE and even MATE is more adopted as a lightweight alternative. A solid little desktop though, keep up the good work...

Thanks. Least LXDE pretty much keeps to the norm with themes and does not make us have to learn all kinds of complicated procedures to change the appearance of our desktops. I have to be totally honest that some aspects of gtk have made a downward trend since we have lost loads of controls over theming. I suppose Gnome in their brilliance felt it was better for all of us to have uglier desktops. So far I do not see anything valid about Gnome 3.20. 3.18, not bad, but not great. I hate to say that LXDE on my system is more stable desktop wise than Gnome 3.18. Yes, apparently I had some wrong wording somewhere and started having issues with LXDM soon as the kernel upgrade came refused to login unless i selected upstart from the grub menu. I needed a display manager to get me out of the hassle, so I picked GDM since was the lesser of the downloads.

I am able to use my themes on the flashback desktop, but of course is very disappointing that so much functionality of that desktop is gone. This falls under the category I described of developers that just sweep things under the table or blow them off and continue on. I really do not call that a solution to the underlying problems that exist. What is a real shame was I made the huge mistake of trying Gnome 3.20 spending a day to no avail. Loss of time that just does not exist for me. Oh well, that is the life of an experimenter as myself. Anyway figured would drop a line about this so no one else gets messed up as I did. User themes function in 3.20 just does not work on any of my themes and most other themes look like something I do not want to say. If you are looking for a stable desktop, by all means forget Gnome and look elsewhere. Had I learned what changes in LXDM had occurred over the past year and a half would not have gone to GDM, so I am to blame for the boot failing after upgrading the system. Still if I am not doing anything serious like virtualbox, Gnome 3.18 can be used for searching web and other daily activities.

For the harder things will use LXDE since it works well. Virtualbox, I am still not sure what will make it look right on my screen. So many adjustments, have tried them all and nothing seems to work so well. I think my hardware is just not right for it. To me seems as if is requiring more power than what I can give it as it reacts very slow. Gnome has also reworked their desktop so you can't fullscreen Virtualbox as will just go against the upper panel. I will end my tiff with Gnome by saying back in 2013 with version 3.10 they hit a peak, from there is all way way downhill. I would not be surprised if they find themselves with no users if they stay on the path they are on. I will bet there are many people even more upset than I am at this trend of theirs. I can very well imagine other desktops have picked up more users.

Well, enough of that as I do not wish to say more about them and instead enjoy other desktops this world of Linux has to offer. The above was written to just let others know what is going on and save them some time as I have expressed. A shame I have lost time in a pointless venture, but least I can warn others against it. Take care and whatever desktop you may choose hope all works right.

All those hoops you have to jump through is basically just the dumbing down approach to appeal to the masses. Give the majority all these freedoms to change and modify their desktops to their liking, is just too complex for the average person. One of the main reasons why I have never left GNOME 2, otherwise known as MATE now. I felt that the new GNOME stripped you of your rights to easily transform your desktop and I disliked that very much years ago. KDE is very nice, not all that bad resource wise anymore, and extremely customizable and I love Plasma on a tablet. More so than Unity or any other, "tablet / netbook," Desktop. And yes I said it, Unity and New GNOME 3, to me, are just a tablet Desktop just like WIndows 8 is. LOL No offense to anyone who prefers the 2, but once upon a time ago, all Linux desktops were easy to customize. Nowadays most advanced users have to tweak the crap out of their desktops just to be satisfied. They can have all those Tweak tools that work like crap. If I want to delete a Panel from my Desktop, I will simply right click and delete it...

I am really seeing your point on this, believe me. Since you use Mate, figured now would be the time to ask if it has ever gone to font coloring on the desktop? For instance under icon Home. I know least with LXDE I have that choice. Yes, I still have something terrible, maybe even prejudicial about white text on the desktop, really disturbs me big time. I still believe text coloring anywhere should be the choice of the user. Black text and white text on these graphical marvels including my newer Zenfone 2 is backwards in my book. I am quite annoyed, I do not have a great choice on my Zenfone 2. Sure I have light cyan coloring under all the icons, but when it comes to system text, nope can't happen since I have zero way of rooting it. Of course, I sincerely believe system color font on these phones should be our own choice and not have to be forced to void our warranties just so we can have it looking exactly like we choose it to.

Basically, that phone has about the exact same graphics and processor as this old computer of mine. Absolutely amazing as to be honest, I did not see quadcores coming to these phones as quickly as they did. Of course, the progression is more than awesome in my book as many of us exist solely on those things for work purposes. I am lucky in that respect as my job does not required it. I do not spend ungodly amounts of time messing with it either. Longest time spent was to load 87 gigs worth of music on it. It is my entertainment on the way to work. I have tried several ways to root it, but of course does not respond and I really do not want to mess it up, so I am stuck with zero choice for system font coloring due to system restraints.

On the positive side of this 16.04, is the first time in I can't remember when that plymouth used the old startrek plymouth theme I downloaded ages ago, probably in 2013. Bye, Bye to the old Stargate on as refuses to work no matter what I have done for it. Even the plymouth manager I downloaded only wants to uninstall it, so I give on that. Besides, to be 100% completely honest I would much rather have this startrek on as I totally laugh at it. Being a major trekkie when I was younger, I watched every single episode least a dozen times. For the life of me, I can't remember a time when just Captain Kirk, Spock and Lt Uhuru beamed up together. Of course this plymouth depicts that and quite crazily and hilarious. So you better believe I am sticking with it. In this crazy world of ours, we have to find time to see humor in things and will state this til the day I die.

Any insight, information on where Mate has gone in the past few years will be greatly appreciated. I still like that desktop, just that one aspect irked me. I am sincerely hoping that has changed. I also thought I heard at one time Flashback was going to be taken over by some other developers and curious if it just fizzled out or what? Personally, have always felt Flashback was Gnome's only ticket as its regular and now seem to be defunct classic, were and are a total joke since there is no use of compiz on those two. I honestly wonder if anyone using Linux does not take advantage of compiz or any of the other decorators as in KDE? I would think those not using would take up a very small percentage, since all the nice little tricks that can be done really make Linux enjoyable to the max. I will probably only stick with the two desktops on this OS, since to be honest those were the only two I constantly used on the last multiple I built, so why waste time and also pick up some more aggravation and unstability doing that? Sure, I love the looks of almost every desktop in Linux, but if I have them they are only visited here and there so is useless to do that again. Anyway, is great visiting the best Ubuntu forum around, missed it but have been busy with every day life hassles as usual. Take care and will be around.

I am a simple man, I have not tried to color fonts or anything to that nature. As far as the Desktop goes, MATE is very active in development and has a complete GTK 3 build with Ubuntu MATE. With that said, you should expect a stable all GTk 3 version coming soon. But just a general rule when it comes to additional software, I always use whats worked for me in the past and is stable no matter the Desktop I am currently running. I also try to not run KDE/QT apps on GTK desktops. I aim to keep away from those library dependencies... One of the main reasons I am not a fan of Multiple Desktops running on Linux.

Sounds great Mate moving to gtk 3. Have to look into next time around(next build). As said, too much white and black just bothers my eyes so go to easier colors that do not. I did the multiple desktop, since it could be done. Before Ultimate, I did not know was possible. I do not see myself ever going back there with multiple desktops, in fact if it weren't for my screw up, I would only have LXDE on this OS. Is laziness as I did not want to go through a dozen files to fix up wording so would boot right again. Somehow, the last kernel update messed the boot up and LXDM just did not want to go into the desktop. I blame it on myself as I did find one file that I messed up, but fixing it did not work, so I knew there had to be more.

If Mate goes to gtk 3 and is looking right, I will most likely never even look at Gnome again. To me would rather try to build my own desktop then ever go back to Gnome full time, since to make it look and work exactly like I want it to would require that. Of course, I am just not that knowledgeable to do so, so that is no option. I would absolutely love to see LXDE take on some gtk 3 qualities and heard that was in the works a few years ago, but now seems to be just talk. Still, LXDE has worked on every last error the had to make it all work correct. I feel that needs to be bragged about and praised. Developers that care need to be told that their users appreciate every single minute and effort they spend to make us enjoy our systems.

I have to really brag about LXDE using my local weather zip code. Gnome still uses Nashville Airport which is over 60 miles away from me. I center on this since LXDE users were complaining about no weather in the taskbar. LXDE developers worked on that issue and resolved it so well, someone like me in a small small town can even get local weather, so that is great. Anyway love the heads up on Mate and am seriously looking forward to gtk 3 on it. Take care, best wishes always.